CRITIC: POLICE NEED TO MINIMIZE FORCE

San Diego civil rights attorney wants more scrutiny of actions

The criteria for whether a law enforcement shooting is justified is based on the standards of the profession. Courts ask if another officer with the same training and experience in the same situation would use similar force.

Each shooting is also subject to as many as three investigations: a department’s internal, policy-driven inquiry; a homicide unit investigation into the circumstances of the shooting; and a prosecutorial review to determine if the officer was legally justified. Even if an officer is cleared, he or she can then face a lawsuit.

Julia Yoo, a San Diego civil rights attorney who sits on the board of the National Police Accountability Project, said none of those investigations are adequate and what is lacking is an independent review board that has subpoena power and the authority to conduct a thorough inquiry.

San Diego has a volunteer Citizens’ Review Board on Police Practices, but it does not conduct independent investigations and instead relies on the department’s Internal Affairs division for information to determine whether complaints are valid.

“If we had an independent review board with a fresh set of eyes that was truly independent, it would make a huge difference,” she said.

Yoo also takes issue with police training that tells officers it’s the suspect who dictates what happens and that if a person simply obeys an officer’s commands, no force will be used. Yoo calls that “blaming the victim” and an oversimplification.

She is skeptical of many official police reports on such shootings.

“A lot of times, I don’t even have to read the reports because we know what it is going to say,” Yoo said, listing such terms as the suspect looked “nervous” or “suspicious,” “reached for their waistband,” “came at me,” and then “out of fear for my life and the safety of the citizens I deployed my weapon.”

“Those are magic words,” Yoo said, contending they justify unlawful shootings by alleging that a suspect was not complying or violent. And people who are dead can’t give their versions of events.

She and other critics say police should focus more on minimizing the need for force in the first place. That includes training to assess the danger of suspects. Are they mentally ill, deaf, in medical distress or non-English speaking? Are they able to understand the sometimes conflicting commands being shouted by multiple officers?

As Yoo sees it, “De-escalation and consideration of appropriate less-lethal force when possible is what keeps the officers, innocent bystanders, arrestees and our community safe.”